Prometheus Partners has $28 million in fresh capital to feed its appetite for nationally franchised brands such as Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and IHOP.

Prometheus, a private equity investment firm based in Clearwater and Atlanta that primarily invests in restaurant franchises in the southeast United States, raised the money in October and early November from three investors who put up a minimum of $5 million each, a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said. The company plans to sell another $22 million of the total $50 million it is seeking to fully fund its latest offering, Prometheus Partners IV LP.

Prometheus is part of a relatively young but growing private equity industry in Tampa Bay that’s critical to the creation of “a culture of success,” said Speros Margetis, associate professor of finance at University of Tampa. As more providers of private equity capital come to the area, successful high-growth companies remain local and maintain access to capital they need to grow. Talented managers partner with savvy investors to create the new generation of growth firms, Margetis said.

Private equity and other funds give investors alternatives, said John Connery Jr., shareholder at Hill Ward Henderson and president of the Tampa Bay Chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth. Although riskier than conventional investments, “in today’s low interest rate environment, people are looking for ways to diversify their holdings and private equity or venture capital becomes part of a diversified portfolio,” Connery said.

Total private equity capital raised nationally in the first three quarters of 2011 reached $80 billion, according to Hyde Park Capital’s quarterly M&A Report.

Successful track records

Connery is seeing an uptick in fund formation in the Bay area. During the Oct. 27 Tampa Bay Business Journal’s Dealmaker’s event, he said he was working on three new funds based in Tampa or in Florida that would deploy their investments over the next six years by buying an interest in firms they expect to grow before selling those stakes over the next decade or so.

The funds are drawing investors based on their organizer’s track records, Connery said.

“It’s always easier to go back to existing limited partners and ask for a commitment to a new fund when you’ve delivered superior results.”

Connery did not identify the funds he was working with, but a search of SEC filings found four Bay area firms have raised almost $40 million this year for private equity, venture capital or pooled investments, including Prometheus. The company’s latest fund launched in October, apparently building on the success of Prometheus Partners III LP, which has raised $42.7 million since 2007.

Nicholas Peters, president and chief executive, did not return calls for comment but the company’s website said since it was founded in 1996, Prometheus has completed 12 platform investments, including more than 300 restaurants, and more than 55 add-on acquisitions.

The company has a “buy and build” strategy, similar to that described by Will Krusen, president of Falcon Affiliates, a private equity firm organized in Tampa in 2009. Falcon’s first deal was in December 2010, when it acquired RGA LLC, a Powhatan, Va. firm that makes traffic control devices.

Falcon only plans to make a limited number of investments, Krusen said. “Our goal is not to build a portfolio of dozens of companies, but to have a smaller portfolio and a strong partnership with management in each company we invest in.”

Falcon’s targets are businesses in the southeast U.S. with $10 million to $15 million in revenue, said Krusen, a former managing director at Raymond James Financial Inc. (NYSE: RJF). Falcon’s investors are family offices, or private companies that manage investments and trusts for a single wealthy family, primarily on the east coast. There’s lots of wealth in the Bay area for an investment fund to tap, said Bhavesh Patel, managing partner of the Reliance Capital Appreciation Fund LLC, which raised $5.5 million since August. Patel expects the fund to top out at $10 million. The fund was established to allow clients of Reliance Wealth & Trust Partners, a boutique wealth management firm in Tampa, to participate in private equity deals.

“We look for companies that are decent-sized and we don’t want to become part of the management,” Patel said. He sees technology and energy companies as ripe for investment. Tech firms, as well as medical device and biopharma companies, also are a key target for Foley Ventures LLC, a $4 million venture capital fund established earlier this year by Foley & Lardner LLP to invest in or with the law firm’s clients.

Psoria-Shield Inc., a Tampa designer and manufacturer specializing in medical devices, is one of six companies and the only one in the Bay area, that Foley Ventures has funded, said Tampa attorney Marty Traber, one of four managing members of the fund. The fund provides $50,000 to $100,000 for each company in which it invests, concentrating on companies that are pulling in revenue but are not yet profitable.

Traber said he’d like to see the fund invest in more Florida deals but many startup companies in the state are funded by family and friends, and Foley Ventures won’t participate in those because there hasn’t been professional due diligence.

Foley Ventures closed out its initial fund last spring, and has spent $2 million of the $4 million raised from Foley partners. “We are considering creating fund two because the interest level among partners has been much higher than expected,” Traber said.